A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

Elfcrusher said:

But given all the ways we have to metagame to play these games, it strikes me as somewhat odd to latch onto this argument to justify the aesthetic preference.

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Lanefan said:

Not [MENTION=10638]Emirikol[/MENTION] but this has caught my interest, at least on the surface of it.

To answer your last question first, changing to a system like this would immediately up the 'gritty' factor by a whole bunch...maybe even too much; I wouldn't know until I tried it.

But on first reading I also have some questions; though fair enough if you don't have the asnwers if this is something you just dreamed up and haven't thought all the way through yet:

Does the saving throw to avoid ticking a harm box get varied or amended by the source of the damage? For example, is a harm save vs. a dagger blow easier than a harm save vs. a greatsword blow or a hit from a giant's club?

If yes to the above, do the saving throws get progressively more difficult with each success unitl one fails, then get reset? (this to allow for a 'death by a thousand cuts' narrative)

Where is 'unconscious' as a condition? Could it be a modifier to the save against harm 4 - if you roll within +/-3 of the DC or cutoff point you're unconscious instead of dead, maybe; and if left untended you'll later (maybe minutes, maybe hours, whenever) get another save, where you either wake up (and live), remain unconscious (and repeat this process later), or die?

How does magical healing or curing work with any of this?

Panic-ridden, Confused, and Demoralized are all conditions that can be inflicted by spell (in 1e D&D: Cause Fear, Confusion, and Emotion respectively) - what's the interaction here? Do these spells now just tick a harm box?

Lanefan

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Shasarak said:

If levels are just a metagame then how come you used to gain a new title with each level?

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Depending on what career you are in I can bet that you have different titles depending where you are in your career path.

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I know that Doctors for example go through several ranks as they are leveling up and that they are expected to have certain skills at those ranks. They can also choose to specialise in different schools of magic, I mean medicine.

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pemerton said:

The ingame explanation is the same way s/he knows s/he is breathing, or hurting - s/he feels it.

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There's no "gradually increaasing".

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You start being able to memorise (say) 1 1st level spell. Then you can memorise 2. Then you can memorise 1 second level spell as well. Then 3 1st and 2 2nd. (I'm using the AD&D charts.) Each step up corresponds exactly to a class level - so if you treat Vancian memorisation as an in-fiction thing, then the wizards can rank themselves exactly based on their memorisation ability, and that ranking will correlate exactly to class levels. (At least up until 8th level. At 9th level and above it is complicated because some wizards with INTs that are too low don't get the 5th or higher level slots.)

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No, that's not what I'm assuming. Of course some spells are chosen because - given the nature of D&D play, which itself has a high metagame component (eg players know that, everything else being equal, they are more likely to have to successfully fight orcs than to successfully balance a ledger) - they are generally good.

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Saelorn said:

Spellcasters are a case where they would very definitely recognize individual skill plateaus, because (at least in The Forgotten Realms) spell slots are a real thing. Whether a given person can or cannot cast Fireball is a thing that they talk about. For wizards, in particular, they have to physically perform the action of preparing the spell ahead of time, which is a process that they discuss with each other. "Do you have any third level spell slots?" is an in-character thing that one wizard might ask another wizard.

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My career doesn't have such equivalent milestones, but if you want to switch it to a different skill, a good equivalent would be Dance Dance Revolution. Each song is rated on a scale from 1-9 (or so), based on its complexity, and I know that I'm good enough to pass a 4 (generally speaking). When I started out, I could only pass a 2. At my best, I could pass most fives and a handful of sixes.

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Elfcrusher said:

I have observed that when people just simply don't like certain aspects/rules/behaviors in an RPG they will concoct elaborate...and sometimes impressively sophisticated...theories to explain why this is not just their opinion, but that these things are objectively bad. In particular, people will latch onto arguments invoking "realism" and "metagaming" to prove why they are right.

I remember Emerikol from the old WotC forums. IIRC, he hated...hated...any non-magical power that wasn't at will. Effectively, "If a fighter knows how to do something, why can't he do it twice?" He's ok with the sheer improbability of a "whirlwind" attack allowing a Fighter to attack all targets within reach in one attack; what he can't abide by is that the number of uses is somehow restricted. In other words, it's the "at-will martial abilities" sinkhole.

And it's a fair question, philosophically: "If I know how to do it, why can I only do it once per day?" I would have thought a satisfactory answer would be "because if all non-magical abilities were at-will, all non-magical abilities would have to be relatively weaker, for game balance, and you wouldn't get cool moves like Whirlwind attacks" (a.k.a. "this is why we can't have nice things").

But given all the ways we have to metagame to play these games, it strikes me as somewhat odd to latch onto this argument to justify the aesthetic preference. You don't have to justify it: you don't like it. That's cool.

Personally, I'm fine with the "narrativist" answer: circumstances rarely align in which you get to do this cool thing, both for game balance and storytelling reasons (cool things are only cool if they are relatively uncommon). You, the player, are given narrative control to decide when that occurs. Yes, your character would do it every "round" (omg metagame construct warning!) if he could, but he can't. You are hereby empowered to narrate the reason why not.

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Saelorn said:

Except you don't have to metagame at all, in order to play. You have actions that are entirely out-of-character, like making a character. You have actions that are entirely in-character, like preparing spells and drinking heal potions. There's no point where you're required to make an in-character decision, based on out-of-game factors, or vice versa.

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Manbearcat said:

Emerikol, let me pose you a question.

I'm not sure you've ever GMed or played under the following paradigm, so let me lay it out. Try to conceive of simply switching out the HP model from your current game for a low overhead system that handles it in fictional terms that also intersect with action resolution (what action declarations might be permissible, what may be penalized).

It looks like this. Instead of HP ablation, when you're physically imposed upon by the world, you roll some kind of Saving Throw. If you fail, you receive some kind of Harm. Harm has 5 boxes and comes in 4 stages.

Harm 1 has two boxes.
Harm 2 has two boxes
Harm 3 has one box
Harm 4 is death

Harm 1 might be Confused, Demoralized, Distracted
Harm 2 might be Concussed, Sprained Ankle, Panick-ridden
Harm 3 might be Nervous Breakdown, Broken Hand, Impaled Shoulder

You could have multiple Harm spanning multiple boxes. But if you fill up Harm 1's two boxes, any further Harm 1 you get automatically becomes Harm 2 (and so on, until you're dead).

Each Harm level and condition comes with an codified impact on action resolution and fictional adjudication (eg Confused carries action resolution consequence
x when you attempt declaration y or z...and it also arises that some things become non-permissible - how are you running the rooftops with that sprained ankle?).

Each Harm level and condition comes with a codified means of removal (duration and care/therapy required to remove).

Something like this is pretty trivially integrated into D&D (especially given the fiddly, not-well-integrated or conceived, and unwieldy subsystems that I've seen folks try to hack onto various D&D substrate).

So my question is:

How do you think supplanting HP ablation for such a system would impact your play?

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Ratskinner said:

Just for clarity's sake. I'm not seeking simulation, either. I'm just seeking a coherent, interesting narrative (preferably with a light mechanical overhead as well). I haven't played in your games, but in every other D&D game I've played in, DMs will casually describe a hit...and then that description is quickly abandoned in the face of the HP total. I think the dissonance that it causes is why so many DMs abandon describing the hits with any detail beyond...you guessed it, a HP total. (Although perhaps time to resolve combat rounds is a bigger factor there.)

Best of luck with your games.

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Maxperson said:

That's why I allow the players if they want to choose two stats to roll at 5d6 drop 2, two stats at 4d6 drop 1, and two stats at 3d6. They have to choose which rolls go into which stats before they start rolling. The 3d6 are the "dump" stats, but I've seen rolls there that are higher than the 5d6 rolls. Now, I also allow the swapping of one pair of stats, because I want them to be able to play the PC they want, but you don't have to if you don't want to. That method will still allow you to get decent scores in prime stats, while rolling "dump" stats separately.

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